Terah
Thomas Maroney (1880-1929), shown here in Great Falls, probably
in 1910, was an early aerial performer and promoter of aviation
in the West. It was a July 4, 1914 Seattle seaplane ride with
Maroney that convinced William Boeing and his partner George
C. Westervelt to go into the airplane manufacturing business.

This series
of 13 rare, never-before-published photos were taken by Helena
merchant Raymond C. Grant, who was likely on a business trip
to Great Falls. Grant was a traveling sales representative
in the paint and store-fixture business, so it seems probable
that he was visiting the McRae & Cluston Planing Mill,
which was directly across 9th St. from where Maroney's aircraft
was tented; the mill is shown in two of the photos.

It is
reasonable to assume that Maroney, a skilled carpenter and
cabinet-maker, had wood-working for his plane done in the
mill. The plane may have been entirely constructed in the
tent. Two photos taken inside the tent show tools, wood and
spare parts.

According
to a newspaper account given by Maroney in 1913, this plane
only flew eight or nine times before breaking apart.

Following
the Great Falls photos is a brief history of Maroney, Montana's
premier aviator.

Maroney
at the controls of his first hand-built aeroplane, likely
taken in 1910, at the intersection of Central Avenue and 9th
Street in Great Falls, Montana. The tent sheltering the plane
was on the northwest corner, where the 1915 Masonic Hall stands
today.

Aeroplane Under the Tent

CLICK
ON IMAGE FOR A BIG VIEW IN A NEW WINDOW

CLICK
ON IMAGE FOR A BIG VIEW IN A NEW WINDOW

Side
and Rears Views of the Aeroplane, Showing the McRae & Cluston
Planing Mill

"Lucy
Burns, as the guest of Flight Lieutenant Maroney of the Naval
Militia at Washington, flew to a height of fourteen hundred
feet over Seattle, scattering leaflets as she went. When she
started, Miss Burns carried a Congressional Union [for Woman
Sufferage] banner, but the eighty-mile-an-hour gale soon tore
it from her hand. When last seen, it reposed peacefully on the
roof of a large Seattle mill." -- The Story of
the Women's Party,
by Inez Haynes Gillmore.

Beeville,
Texas, 1916

Service
in World War I

Post-War
Change of Career

According
to former Boeing corporate historian Paul G. Spitzer, the
end of World War I brought big changes to Maroney's career.
In an article for the Winter
2010/2011 Eastlake News, Mr. Spitzer wrote:

"After
the war and his discharge, Maroney returned to Seattle. The
planes he left behind were so obsolete and damaged that they
were unusable. He went to work for a for a flying service
on Puget Sound in a Boeing Model C, but business remained
bad. Still worse, the thousands of students trained during
the war returned home wanting jobs in aviation. The future,
even in the rapidly expanding field of aviation, was as bleak
for them as it was for Maroney.

One day driving in California, Maroney broke the axle in his
car and he stayed there to build cabinets and houses. The
craftsmanship that once had made his airplane stronger than
engineers expected now served him in the building trade. However,
his several attempts to
re­enter aviation never worked out. Opportunities were
scarce, airplanes costly, and the complexity of new designs
put them out of reach of even people with good carpentry skills
such as him."

It is
known that Maroney, then a building contractor, and a spouse
lived in Reno, Nevavda and near Sacramento, California in
the 1920s.

Maroney
and Wife Purchase Small California Resort Property, 1927

A Recent
Google Maps View of Whitehall, in California

MAP
COORDINATES: 38.775278, -120.405278

Maroney
at Family Reunion, Wichita, 1928

Maroney's
Accidental Death, 1929Struck by a Propeller at Parks Airport, East St.
Louis, Illinois
(now known as St. Louis Downtown Airport)